About a Place in the Kinki Region p.14: "Waiting" working draft
A-san's mother was a gentle woman who always wore a warm smile.
Until he was around 20, A-san lived with his parents at their family home in Okayama.
After entering the workforce, he moved to Nagano for his job. About twenty years later, his father suffered a stroke. Unfortunately, the underlying cause was diagnosed far too late. Despite undergoing treatment, his father passed away that same day.
A-san was concerned about his mother having to live alone. He suggested that she live with him but she refused, saying that she didn't want to be a burden to her only son. A-san was still single at the age of 40, and his mother likely didn't want to get in the way of him finding a partner.
A-san would visit his mother whenever he could, but he still thought that a 70-year-old living alone in that large family home was far too lonely.
"I'm thinking of moving."
When his mother contacted him to tell him the news, he was surprised—but he soon agreed it was a good idea.
His mother was intended to move to an apartment complex in ●●●●● at the recommendation of a real estate agent. Living alone in their family home was difficult for her—it was hard to maintain, and she was constantly reminded of her late husband. She wished to spend the rest of her life somewhere else, and an apartment meant neighbours who could rely on each other were something to happen. A-san could sympathise with her reasoning.
He looked up the location online and found it was a multi-building condominium that was built in the 80s during a real estate development rush. It was once quite popular, particularly for families. Nowadays, many of the apartments were on the market as very reasonably priced rentals—with most of the occupants either being elderly couples or sole tenants, just like his mother.
The complex sat atop a hill carved into the side of a mountain, but there was a town close by and the hill was gentle enough that making the trip there and back wouldn't be too much of a burden for an elderly person.
A-san accompanied his mother for a viewing of the complex, but his first impression was that it was 'gloomy.' The view of the town nearby was gorgeous and the mountainous backdrop provided a natural aesthetic, and yet A-san still found it 'gloomy.' There seemed to be few people living there—it was a large complex but he couldn't see anyone out and about, not around the buildings or in the park on the premises. There were no curtains hung in the windows of most the windows, A-san estimated not even a third of the apartments were occupied. Further, the common areas and their planters were all poorly maintained, which only made the place seem more run-down.
However, despite A-san's negative impressions, his mother quickly took a liking to the condominium. The natural surroundings and the beautiful views were indeed an attractive feature, but the lack of occupants may have actually been a stronger selling point—the calm it offered suited her.
A-san decided not to intervene, as he believed she should be able to decide for herself where to live.
They viewed a number of apartments but his mother settled on a property on the third floor of Building 5. It was a ten-storey building, but she chose a floor near the bottom as going up and down from a high floor would be troublesome. The real estate agent strongly recommended Building 5 as many of its apartments were designed for sole tenants or couples, meaning she would be surrounded by people with similar circumstances.
On the day she moved in, A-san accompanied his mother as she went to introduce herself to her neighbours. However, only one resident even opened their door—and he was a rude old man who barely offered a greeting before snatching their housewarming gift and shutting his door.
A-san couldn't help but worry whether this was really the right place for his mother.
Six months later, the apartment A-san rented in Nagano suffered a water leak. The leak was directly above his room, so most of the damage was concentrated there. The property management company told him it would take two days to fix the issue and repair the room, including replacing the damaged wallpaper. Without anywhere to live for two days, A-san saw this as an opportunity to take some time off work and visit his mother.
His job has gotten significantly busier since the move so they hadn't seen each other in quite some time. When he called his mother to explain, she was happy to accommodate him.
It was his first time visiting since the move. That gloomy atmosphere still hung in the air.
However, when he entered his mother's apartment, he saw a calendar hung upon the wall and a bookshelf full of books—all items she must have purchased since moving in. It was clear to A-san that she was building a new life for herself. And while there were few residents in the complex, she had made friends with a few of her neighbours. A-san breathed a sigh of relief.
A-san's mother was a gentle woman who always wore a warm smile.
And the same was true of her son—as a child, A-san would list off everything that had happened that day at school and she would listen quietly, wearing that cheerful smile. In contrast, A-san's father was a strict man who was somewhat difficult to talk to.
On the day of his visit, A-san's mother sat by the window, open curtains letting the sun bask the room in warmth, smiling gently as he told her what was going on in his life.
And yet, she wasn't quite the same person he remembered. Occasionally, her expression would turn blank—as she nodded along to A-san's stories, she would suddenly lose all emotion in her face, staring vacantly forward. A-san felt the same sense of 'gloom' he'd noticed seeing the deserted condominium grounds. When he pointed out what she was doing, his mother appeared completely unaware.
She would also gaze out of the window with that same blank look for long stretches of time, as if watching the nature outside go by. She had always been a fairly introverted person, preferring to read at home instead of go out. Still, as A-san saw her sit there idly without anything like the television or some music in the background, he couldn't help but wonder if this was an early sign of dementia—a thought he couldn't bear to entertain.
He eventually had to ask the question.
"Why are you always looking out the window? Have you picked up birdwatching?"
His mother replied, never turning her gaze from the window, not even for a second.
"I'm waiting."
A-san pressed his mother and asked her what she was waiting for, but she only smiled in response.
In the evening his mother took to the kitchen and announced:
"I'll be making meat and potato stew. I've even got some chilled persimmons for dessert. Those were always your favourites."
A-san certainly did love meat and potato stew, but he never had any particular fondness for persimmons. Not to mention, it was spring—persimmons weren't in season. He felt a sting of sadness at the thought that his mother was starting to go senile.
By the time he'd finished ruminating, the food was already in front of him.
Meat and potato stew, miso soup, seasoned rapini, noodle salad, and boiled rice. Everything here was a dish A-san loved as a child. Somehow, that made the sadness sting even more.
But A-san was shocked upon taking his first bite—the food was absolutely tasteless.
It's understood that a common sign of dementia is one's home cooking suddenly tasting unusual, but this was something else entirely. It looked like meat and potato stew, but there was an absence of flavour and felt like chewing sand. If you made a mistake like mixing up salt with sugar, of course the dish would end up tasting unpleasant, but this meal lacked even that—not unpleasant, not bitter, just nothing at all.
His mother didn't notice his shock and ate her meal without issue but, rather than savouring the food, it was more like she was simply going through the motions and eating for the sake of eating.
A-san knew at that moment that he couldn't leave his dear mother to live on her own.
He decided he would bring her to stay with him instead.
Just as he'd laid down his chopsticks and was preparing to broach the subject, there was a terrible noise outside the window.
It was an unusual combination of a loud 'thud' and a 'splashing' sound.
A-san was shocked by the sound and ran to the window to see what it was. His mother, however, had reacted even faster. She dashed there with alarming speed.
Looking down, there was a person. They lay on the ground with their limbs sprawled out painfully, twitching horribly in a pool of blood.
A-san's mother was a gentle woman who always wore a warm smile.
And A-san will never forget what he saw in that moment.
His mother wore that same gentle smile as she gazed at the gruesome scene below.
A-san had his mother stay with a relative for the time being. As he was watching the moving truck containing all of her belongings depart for his home, he was approached by a middle-aged woman at the park in the complex.
She was apparently an acquaintance of A-san's mother, but she lived in a different building. She had seen him coming and going from his mother's apartment the other day and decided to call out to him.
She had met his mother at the park shortly after the move. As there were few residents living in the complex, the woman would check in on her. His mother soon started going outside less and less, which meant they'd had little contact recently.
A-san thanked the woman for getting along with his mother and informed her that she was moving out. The woman replied:
"I'll miss her, but this is for the best. It's relieving to hear she'll be with her son. But more than anything, she shouldn't be living somewhere like that..."
According to the woman, that hadn't been the first suicide that took place at Building 5—several people jump to their deaths from the roof each year. It seemed to be known as a popular place to end your life, amongst certain groups of people.
The vast majority of those who'd taken their own life there did not live in the apartment complex. Rather, they were people who had 'came to die there.' For whatever reason, it was only Building 5 that saw these suicides. As a result of all these incidents, the residents of the complex avoided going near the place.
That was the kind of place his mother had been living in.
A-san thought for a moment, and then asked the woman if there had been any other suicides since his mother had moved in.
Supposedly, two people had jumped to their deaths in that time. In her time here, his mother had witnessed three people jumping to their deaths.
Hearing this, A-san knew his gut feeling was correct.
His mother had been waiting for someone to jump.
As she sat there, peacefully, by the window.
Feedback has been written in red pen on a sticky note attached to the document:
"There's been some changes to the layout, so we're only doing 2 pages for this story now instead of 4. Cut out some of the details and rewrite it as a spooky story focused on the suicides!"
Translation Notes 9-16
The translation notes are organised by part. Please be careful of spoiling yourself by reading ahead.
This is an amateur translation of the web novel 近畿地方のある場所について as posted to kakuyomu.jp by the author 背筋. The web novel is freely accessible to the public, and this translation has no relation to any other adaptions. I claim no rights or ownership of the content presented.